Convention

The Fellowship of Christian Assemblies Convention is going great. God has really been confirming some stuff in my perspective on life and church that has been changing in the last years. Strangely Ephesians 4 and Revelation 1 have been central to the different messages so far...I've been ruminating on these verses for a long time because I would like to write a book that launches out of a universal and local understanding of the church from those passages...weird.
Joel Holm and Graham Fletcher have had great words about God's plan for each city. God has a word for each CITY...for the church of the CITY! It's an exciting time to be hearing what "God is saying to the church..." like we are reminded to do in Revelation.
God has also been challenging me on other perspectives of life and ministry that I have had or am changing and it has been a very confirming thing about areas that I am seeing need to change in my life and ministry.

I am eager to continue downloading what God is saying to Breck/Wahp AND dare I say...the nations?

Clothes

You thought I'd write about the cool shirts I got for like $5 each at Kohls? Well, I won't :-)

I'm doing a research project on the book of Ephesians and I just saw something I thought I'd share. Several years ago I had noticed the similarities between Colossians and Ephesians, but thought nothing of it and didn't realize there was a huge scholarly debate about them, I just thought Paul had similar things to say to a different church :-) (which seems to be the conclusion I've reached after reading a ton about the debate!)

I thought it was interesting that we are told in Colossians 3 to "put to death" and to "put off" our "old man" and then later it tells us to "put on" or "clothe" ourselves with the "new man" (also in Ephesians 4:24). I just thought it was interesting that in Romans Paul also uses a similar picture to tells us to "clothe" ourselves with "the Lord Jesus Christ." Each of those times there's an exhortation connected with the "new clothes" being different than the old and that we should "put on" the new and "remove" the old..."stop dressing like trash!" Just a reminder for us all, I guess, to stop living like we're wearing the old clothes (or take them off if we're still wearing them) and put on Christ and in so doing put on our new "man" which was created to be like God (Ephesians 4:24)!

Energy

I wish I had this much energy!

Magazines

There are four magazine that I read Reader's Digest, Time, Plugged In, and Fast Company. For some reason I am driven to read them as soon as I can when I get them. I usually won't read every single article, but I'll familiarize myself with the articles I don't read.
Tonight I got back from Radiate and Reader's Digest was sitting on the counter...Well, I finished it, now I can go to bed...last night I read Time :-) I think 4 magazines is all I can keep up with with everything else going on, but it helps me gain from diversified streams of information. I've said it before, I'm not sure who was the first to state this, but "readers are leaders and leaders are readers"...so in working on a degree in leadership and ministry I'm also working on creating the habits necessary to being a lifelong learner...hopefully they stick ;-)

Two Down

Two classes down and only one to go! Well, at least in terms of having viewed all of the lectures :-) There's still homework to do, but it feels good to have tangible things like lectures finished! I have 10 more lectures in Principles of Management and then I'll be done with all of my lectures and can focus my energies on my research paper, leadership paper, forum discussions, and finals...I think that's it...Wow! There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Yeah, so remind me that 9 credits is a lot next time I consider doing this...which might be next January, so you can remind me in December if you want :-)

If I take 6 credits in the summer, 6 in the fall and 9 in January I'll be done by May 2009!!! ...now that I think of it, that's kind of depressing. I started in 2004 and took the 2005 school year off and I'll end up with about 49 credits for a 42 credit degree...well, I've learned a lot...and I've forgotten a lot too :-0 It's like the new information pushes the old out!

Productive

Tonight was a good night. I've gotten 3 video sessions for my New Testament class watched and I have 2 more I'd like to do before I go to bed to be done with the videos for that class!

I'm learning a lot, but more than that it's making me want to take classes where that professor taught the video series! There are so many nuggets in his teaching. It's great.

In the last several months I've read some books and I may post summaries later, but here they are in case you're curious to go to amazon and look them up for fun:

1. The Craft of Research by Booth, Colomb, and Williams
2. An Introduction to the New Testament by D.A. Carson and D.J. Moo (which interestingly enough is at least twice as long as the New Testament...Funny that an introduction would be longer than what it introduces)
3. Good to Great by Jim Collins
4. Fundamentals of Management: Essential Concepts and Applications by Robbins and DeCenzo
5. An Introduction to Theological Research by Cyril Barber and Robert Krauss
   

I've also done some reading for a research paper on the fascinating book of Ephesians, but I'll spare you the details until the project is finished.

Now back to my classes.